Of Pains and Gains...

 A weekend full of stressful oh-nos and happy-yeses...

oh the pains whereby we gain experience!

What will today bring; no one knows

but this...the unfailing grace whereby man goes.

Hallelujah!

Now break of day strums strings of gray and wakens hymns of blush and gold

Where what has not yet come our way will soon turn into days of old

Once more to man time is deployed in breath by breath spans, mercy-fired

Life grants so much to be enjoyed and yet leaves much to be desired

The pain that gains experience oft-times does not explain its whys

The rugged road to recompense is filled with hills of sundry size

They keep us on our toes and knees while pressing upward, left-foot-right

A winsome Thing that comes and goes where thorn and rose pricks and delights

Life’s bumps and blows seem to expose the simpler, sweeter joys and such

The somber tones the Painter chose (we never would) highlights His touch

And when we look back on the track we thought begot an unfair score

We start to see with clarity so much more to be thankful for

© Janet Martin

 From the ends of the earth I call to you, 

I call as my heart grows faint; lead me to the rock that is higher than I.

Psalm 61:2

Of May...

 Busy, beautiful days...

My, my, how May’s artist imparts

Pure happiness to human hearts

Where long the barren branch had been

It brims and drips with gold and green

The earth and its fullness thereof

Thrills keen audiences with love

Of tulip-chalice,lilac-floats

Of apple-blossom pink-snowed slopes

Of nature’s palace, sparkling clean

With fresh umbrellas, lacy sheen

Of seed and bud-borne miracle

Of bird-song’s ceaseless canticle

Of pansy-posy’s poetry

Of brook that babbles, worry-free

Of flower fortune God-designed

Of earth and heaven intertwined

Of joy unspeakable because

Of what waits in petal-applause

Of gardens planned and planted too

Beneath heights of bottomless blue

Of faith and trust in gracious God

As seeds are ushered to the sod

Of humble prayers that they will grow

Of hopes that we reap what we sow

Of thankfulness to be alive

Where larks and swallows dart and dive

Of earth shaken from winter’s gloom

Of worlds wakened, reborn to bloom

© Janet Martin

 The earth is the Lord's, and the fulness thereof; 

the world, and they that dwell therein.

Psalm 24:1

Of Uncaged Consonants...

 This was going to be fun four-liner rhyme about words 

(after seeing a prompt 'rhyme a reason you like to write' on FB)

but it turned into something like a hungry leopard freed from its cage

...chasing a herd of antelope😊

 Sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words...

 ...little show-stealer didn't want just his sister in the picture so he made a MAD dash for it
when he saw the camera and pulled this funny face to top it all off😂

The word 'cherish' has become my mind-set for moments...

Words draw us in to worlds apart

A painter’s tray for ink-swirled art

They dash and drip and splash and pour

Into pictures not seen before

Where from the quill as from a brush

They spill, a panoramic rush

To thrill the gallery of thought

With scenes of what is or is not

They surge and seep and laugh and weep

And fill a thousand hills with sheep

Or startle us with the faint roar

Of what once was and is no more

…where all that is began with Word

Timeless abyss by language stirred

Creating in the darkness, Light

Composing that first day and night

…for all we think about and see

Began with God’s Words, ‘let there be’

Then still-life shore and surging tide

Stood gloriously side by side

The bud swaddled the naked tree

God awed earth with His poetry

The manifold folds of a flow’r

The ink-well dell, the mountain’s tow’r

…but alas, soon Perfection’s bliss

Was broken by the serpent’s hiss

As words of vile hatred gave voice

To mankind’s sacred law of choice

And thereby didst coldly deceive

With cunning words, Adam and Eve

Revealing with designing skill

How words work both for good and ill

Reminding us thus, words should be

Weighed well before we set them free

For who knows the full recompense

Of word’s infinite influence

Ah, what we write and what we say

…we all hold a grand painter’s tray

The colours that we choose to use

So varied in its hues and views

A stallion of cloven ink

Set free on fields of Feel and Think

To wreak havoc in human heart

To spill its ilk in sonant art

To cheer us on or crush us, oh

By a word-painted picture-show

For so much more is seen than heard

In the ripple-effect of Word

The lover of ink-woven things

Is never lonesome long; hope sings

In the courtyard of poetry

Knowing how much a word can be

If chosen carefully and then

Set free on yachts of acumen

A contagion of gross purport

Wafts in the wake of verbal sport

A smile, a kiss, a fist-a-cuff

Sometimes gentle and sometimes gruff

The matrix for a symphony

Melding bare fact with fantasy

…for we are creatures born to dream

And apt to get lost in a stream

Of stars felled while we stared a while

To where the air of words beguile

The one who seems drawn to the vaunt

Of what hides in unbridled font

Of ABC waiting to be

A storm upon an unformed sea

A diamond on the sand of time

A sparkle spilt in lilt and rhyme

Then snared to press upon a page

To preserve there from age to age

…for words always invite us in

To partake of love’s groan and grin

To touch the place where tears regale

The face when at last mere words fail

As we curl in the cozy nook

Between the covers of a book

And fantasize and empathize

In worlds cut down to whispered sighs

And make us feel, as feathers fall

We are not strangers after all

But, by the bond of word begin

To be like worldwide next of kin

© Janet Martin

 The good person out of the good treasure of his heart produces good, 

and the evil person out of his evil treasure produces evil, 

for out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks.

Luke 6:45

Unless We Seek...

How can we gain great confidence

In seasons of distress

Or find hope and deliverance

Without God’s promises

How can we know God’s promises

If we, worry-inclined

Still try to fill heart-emptiness

Through channels of the mind

How can man’s ignorance maintain

The things we ought to think

How can Living Water sustain

If we don’t stop to drink

How can we think on purer things

If we have never sought

The richer and the surer things

That the Great Teacher taught

How can a ship without a sail

Be steered from rock and reef

How can a man survive the gale

Without anchored belief

How can belief be absolute

It never can unless

The seed of faith has taken root

Within God’s promises

How can the seed of faith take root

And yield sweet recompense

Only when repentance bears fruit

In meek obedience

How can obedience begin

A life of happiness

When we find kind assurance in

God’s faithful promises

How can we find His promises

To empower the weak

Alas, we never can unless

Unless we truly seek

© Janet Martin

Seek and ye shall find...
Matt.7:7

 

2 Peter 1:2-10 KJV

 Grace and peace be multiplied unto you through the knowledge of God, and of Jesus our Lord,

³ According as his divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and virtue:

⁴ Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.

⁵ And beside this, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue; and to virtue knowledge;

⁶ And to knowledge temperance; and to temperance patience; and to patience godliness;

⁷ And to godliness brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness charity.

⁸ For if these things be in you, and abound, they make you that ye shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.

⁹ But he that lacketh these things is blind, and cannot see afar off, and hath forgotten that he was purged from his old sins.

¹⁰ Wherefore the rather, brethren, give diligence to make your calling and election sure: for if ye do these things, ye shall never fall: